against unjust laws and to educate. This

is not a fight for special favors, nor for a special place in society. Homosexuals demand only that which is their due as citizens. For this, there must be a militant organization. No such organization. now exists.

Quo Vadis, Mattachine Society?

Till now the Mattachine has not been attacked by authority because it was entirely legal in function and purpose. It declared its status and proclaimed its aims. The present Society however invites certain destruction by denial of all those things for which the Mattachine was founded. With no aims and

to

concrete accomplishments to point and worse, with a denial that it is what it is. It can only be legally classified as a club of perverts who have gotten together to perform unnatural acts. If they don't fight for social respect and their legal rights, if they don't educate and champion their own, there is no reason that they should gather together unless it be for lewd purposes. The fact that it even toyed with the idea of a private bar where its members could gather "with their own kind" and commit unconventional, if not unlawful acts, is most revealing and damning.

Prognosis Negative?

There are innumerable fine things which an organization of homosexuals can do for themselves and for society. The field of potential projects is endless. The Mattachine Foundation nibbled at its edges. The Mattachine Society not only refuses to even nibble but denies blandly, that there is anything to be done that is of any great consequence. It seems to see no reason for its own existence.

And the reason for this is not stupidity. The present leaders of the Society are not giddy, unthinking fools. They are plainly afraid.

From the trembling president on down to the least officer, they are terrified. In spite of the fact that the job before them is fine and good and tragically urgent, they live in constant terror. Most of the leaders are desperately sorry they got into the damned thing in the first place. It is true that they should be afraid. They certainly could be falsely charged and thrown into jail, but this very possibility is the strongest proof that they must fight whether they want to or not. You can't run from corruption and remain uncorrupt.

The Mattachine's name (which the Society has retained in an involuntary tribute to the old Foundation's accomplishments) referred to those who stand up against misused power and speak out the truth in spite of direst consequences. The Society should perhaps shed the name, too, if it means to be only a social club ignoring its reason for existence. Perhaps it should also admit that it is just a refuge for fairies who have hair which they must take down who must behave in a manner they know is objectionable to society.

New Hear This

The only way that the Mattachine Society can save itself from gradual dissolution or spontaneous combustion on the front pages of the daily press, is to initiate a series of projects concretely beneficial to both society and the homosexual. The deviate must see not only from the Societys' intentions but from its record that here is an outfit worth giving time and money to. Membership

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